News & Blog by Alma Katsu
Read the latest news and bulletins, essays, features, opinions from our bestselling authors. Find out what's being said, debated, and discussed in the world of books and ideas.
Lanny, the heroine of The TAKER, admits in the first chapter that she is immortal, but she hasn’t a clue as to how this is possible. It’s this mystery – how is it possible for someone to become immortal? – that helps drive The TAKER. Lanny grew up at a time and in a place where religion played a large part in daily life and so it’s natural for her to look to religion for an answer to what’s...
Let’s face it: we women love a bad boy. In our fantasy lives, at least. We’re drawn to a man with a hint of danger, a man who is a bit wild and beyond our control and can make us do something wild, too. If you’re looking for a book with men who can make your stomach do fillips with one smoldering glance, you’ve come to the right place. At the risk of undercutting the purely literary merits...
I was concerned that The TAKER’s early American setting would make it less interesting to international readers. Not even most Americans consider America of the early 1800s to be sexy. I’m happy to report that this doesn’t seem to be a problem; we’ve sold translation rights in several languages, with a few more deals in the works. And I think the reason that The TAKER is finding an international...
One piece of advice a writer gets early in her career is that you must know where your book will sit in the bookstore. Readers know their tastes and gravitate to the section of the bookstore or library where those books can be found. For a book to be discovered by readers, shelving is of paramount importance. So what happens when you have a novel that doesn’t fit into a category? Publishers...
The TAKER is the story of Lanore McIlvrae, a young woman who grows up in a small town in the great north woods of the territory of Maine in the early part of the 1800s. Lanore has the misfortune to fall in love with Jonathan, the eldest son of the wealthiest family in town. Coming from a poor family, she knows she will not be allowed to marry Jonathan but she can’t accept this, and so when a mysterious...
